Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary embraces AI filmmaking with three films in progress

Roger Avary is at the center of attention as he appeared in the news not once but twice this week. Avary has been a part of Hollywood for nearly three decades, with the highlight of his career being the writer for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. After that, he had worked on other movies like Silent Hill and Beowulf and even directed The Rules of Attraction.

A day ago, Avary announced that he is joining the AI filmmaking bandwagon through his technology company, General Cinema Dynamics. Roger Avary announced through his X (formerly Twitter) post that General Cinema Dynamics had made a deal with Massive Studios, an AI company studio:

"My technology company General Cinema Dynamics is working closely with @ai_massive to bring feature-length AI productions to theatres. We have three features in active production."

Roger Avary's jump into AI filmmaking explained:

Roger Avary's filmography consists of seven movies; of those, he directed four. He also worked as a writer on movies like Pulp Fiction, Silent Hill, and Beowulf. His manslaughter conviction in 2009 meant that the filmmaker was away from the film industry for a decade. It was not until 2019's Lucky Day that Avary returned to the director's chair.

Since then, Roger Avary has not worked on a film until now. The filmmaker revealed that he couldn't find anyone to back him until:

“And then I built a technology company over the last year, basically making AI movies. And all of the sudden, boom! Like that, money gets thrown at it. Just by attaching the word AI, and that it’s a technology-based company, all of the sudden, investors came in, and we’re in production on three films now.”

Avary further continued:

“Just put AI in front of it, and all of the sudden, you’re in production on three features.”

Roger Avary described the three movies as a family Christmas movie for this year, a faith-based feature scheduled to release for Easter 2027, and a romantic war epic. Given his words, it seems that generative AI may help independent filmmakers like Avary get their projects green-lit. Addressing the public disdain for the generative AI technology, the filmmaker said:

“So many people are against AI. But all it is, is visual effects. And I have experience, like with that Beuwolf movie, doing it. And what used to be a million dollars a minute is now $5,000 a minute, to do it really, really well. It looks kind of amazing, actually. I think, for independent cinema, and for the future of film and television production, these are super exciting times.”

Avary's words contrast with those of the US senators who introduced a bill that requires AI companies to divulge copyrighted works:

Republican Senator John Curtis and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff introduced the Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting Act last Tuesday. Deadline was the first to publish a report about the law. It read:

"Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) are introducing a bill that touches on one of the hottest Hollywood-tech debates in the development of AI: The use of copyrighted works in training models. The Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting Act would require companies file a notice with the Register of Copyrights that detail the copyrighted works used to train datasets for an AI model. The notice would have to be filed before a new model is publicly released, and would apply retroactively to models already available to consumers. The Copyright Office also would be required to establish a public database of the notices filed. There also would be civil penalties for failure to disclose the works used."

What do you think about Roger Avary's jump into AI filmmaking?